The Wonder

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect and variant spellings have been retained. Greek text appears as originally printed, but with a mouse-hover transliteration, Βιβλος . TO MY FRIEND AND CRITIC HUGH WALPOLE CONTENTS MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT I. The Motive 11 II. Notes for a Biography of Ginger Stott 22 III. The Disillusionment of Ginger Stott 58 THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WONDER IV. The Manner of His Birth 71 V. His Departure from Stoke-Underhill 92 VI. His Father's Desertion 107 VII. His Debt to Henry Challis 118 VIII. His First Visit to Challis Court 143 Interlude 149 THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS IX. His Passage through the Prison of Knowledge 155 X. His Pastors and Masters 179 XI. His Examination 193 XII. His Interview with Herr Grossmann 217 XIII. Fugitive 229 MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER XIV. How I Went to Pym to Write a Book 235 XV. The Incipience of My Subjection to the Wonder 247 XVI. The Progress and Relaxation of My Subjection 267 XVII. Release 284 XVIII. Implications 299 XIX. Epilogue: The Uses of Mystery 305 MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT THE MOTIVE I I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered the train. Since we had left London, I had been struggling with Baillie's translation of Hegel's "Phenomenology." It was not a book to read among such distracting circumstances as those of a railway journey, but I was eagerly planning a little dissertation of my own at that time, and my work as a journalist gave me little leisure for quiet study. I looked up when the woman entered my compartment, though I did not notice the name of the station. I caught sight of the baby she was carrying, and turned back to my book. I thought the child was a freak, an abnormality; and such things disgust me. I returned to the study of my Hegel and read: "For knowledge is not the divergence of the ray, but the ray itself by which the truth comes to us; and if this ray be removed, the bare direction or the empty place would alone be indicated." I kept my eyes on the book—the train had started again—but the next passage conveyed no meaning to my mind, and as I attempted to re-read it an impression was interposed between me…